Twenty something years ago, when I worked for Honda, Silvio Manicardi took me to the Isle of Mann TT races. The TT is a special, rare kind of event called road racing, riding excessively fast on what are normally public roads, past houses and spectators without crash barriers or run-offs. That year, Yamaha was trying very hard to stop Hondas run of victories, and we at Honda needed to stop Yamaha from stopping us... So we got some out-freaking-rageous bikes from Japan. (And I mean out-freaking-rageous even in the context of top-level factory-team international motorcycle racing. These were multi-million dollar bikes.) The riders were Steve Hislop and Carl Fogarty. The acceleration was so strong that Carl said our eyeballs are being compressed by the acceleration, blurring our vision - so we just aim for the gaps between the green bits. The race basically became a parade - the Honda bikes were so quick, no-one could even touch them. We sat back and smiled, Yamaha didnt. ;) At some point that week, I was driven around the track in a Honda sporty saloon by a former racer. He called it fairly quick - and it was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. Afterwards, I found out we had done the circuit in 40 minutes - at slower than HALF the speed of the racing bikes. This is what it looks like at racing speeds. (The video is on a 600cc bike, which are not the fastest machines. But its the engine size I like best. Nothing beats the sound of a straight four on song.)
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 17:39:04 +0000
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